In the Pirates of the Caribbean universe, Jack Sparrow’s father is played by Rolling Stones’ guitarist Keith Richards. That’s the only reason this next sentence isn’t completely and utterly insane: Sir Paul McCartney has joined the cast of Pirates of the Caribbean: Dead Men Tell No Tales.

You may already know that a Silver Surfer film nearly got made in 1980, starring producer Lee Kramer's girlfriend Olivia Newton-John. But did you know that Paul McCartney was approached to do the soundtrack, and was seriously interested?

This is a good song. No one is saying that you should listen to it while in any type of altered mental state whatsoever. It's just a good song. The Wings recorded it in 1972 and it got pretty popular, though the BBC was turned off by some of its lyrics. Paul apparently had this to say about their concerns:

What's Paul McCartney's doomsday scenario? Someone, somewhere, somehow manages to leak the Beatles' music onto the internet, where it will be stolen by everyone, all the time. This must be prevented! Notice a problem there? Yeah, it gets worse.

Finally! Paul McCartney has signed a $400 million deal, which will see the Beatles catalog make its way to iTunes, at long last. UPDATE: While the UPI is a great source, and their story was written as fact, Sony/ATV, holders of much of the Beatles publishing rights, are throwing doubt on any of this being true. The…

Well, two in, two to go: following up on yesterday's announcement, Sir Paul McCartney's new album Memory Almost Full is available now for pre-order exclusively in the iTunes Music Store. Macca's new album, a very personal work according to him, will be available for download on June 5.

We're ever so close to getting The Beatles' catalog online for purchase, I swear. Today's update involves Paul McCartney, who is releasing his entire catalog (both solo and, ugh, Wings) to all online stores. It'll be available DRM-free, as it's being released by EMI, which is great to see.